My wife was pregnant with our second
child when, at 26 weeks, her membranes
ruptured. It was 7:30 pm, and, while
thinking at first it was simply
incontinence, we decided nonetheless to
be safe and to call the maternity ward
of our hospital for advice. They
recommended she come to the hospital
immediately. Once there, they performed
two tests: the litmus, and the
speculum. The litmus test came back
positive; the second test was negative
for amniotic fluid leak. And since
there was no further leakage, we were
sent home.
That night, at about 1:00 am, my wife
jumped out of bed; our sheets and
mattress had been soaked by another
spontaneous gush of fluid while we
slept. We immediately returned to the
hospital, where my wife was kept
overnight. An emergency ultrasound was
performed the next morning. The results
were negative; there was no appreciable
loss of amniotic fluid. We breathed a
collective sigh of relief, and were
sent back home.
When a third gush presented itself, we
went back to the hospital once again,
and finally got the diagnosis that up
until this time had been unspoken:
preterm, premature rupture of the
membranes (P-PROM). My wife was sent
back home, this time with orders of
permanent bed-rest until the baby
arrived. Our doctor advised us that, in
his experience, when the membranes
rupture this early, labour and delivery
are expected very shortly. He
recommended we prepare ourselves for
the possibility of extensive post-natal
care to be conducted on our child,
involving delivery at the big-city
hospital(Vancouver, BC) rather than our
local ward, incubation, medication, and
connection of our baby to a lung
machine.
The birth of our child did not come
soon. Miraculously, my wife persisted
in her bed rest for over nine weeks.
Every single hour of every single day,
however, she felt leakage; every single
morning she experienced a gush of
whatever amount of amniotic fluid might
have accumulated overnight (amniotic
fluid constantly replenishes itself,
but because of the tear in her
membranes, is constantly lost). Every
night we went to bed wondering if this
was the day it would all be over,
anxious on the one part that our child
did not have an optimally healthy womb,
wanting, therefore, her to be out of
there; grateful, on the other part,
that she was lasting so long, that she
was not being exposed to the harshness
of birth and hospitalization too early,
and that she was able to undergo as
many natural gestational developments
as possible, prior to birth.
At a couple days short of 35 weeks, my
wife began to feel a definite
progression in the contractions she had
been feeling over the previous few
days. At the hospital, she was
immediately set up with external
monitors. Since she had already been in
labour for a couple of days by this
time, oxytocin was administered to get
things going. Our family doctor had
insisted that a pediatrician be in the
room, in the event any emergency
intervention should be required. As
things would have it, neither he nor
our family doctor made it before our
new daughter began to show her head.
At 8:25 pm, February 8, 2001, Caitlin
Marie Thompson was born. She began
wailing almost immediately, a beautiful
sound for her mom and I to hear after
fearing for the state of her lungs.
Within a few minutes, our doctor and
pediatrician arrived. They confirmed
that our daughter seemed very healthy.
She weighed in at 5 lbs, 12 ounces, a
good weight for a 5-week pre-term baby.
We each held her for a few moments
before she was taken to the nursery.
Far short of the weeks we had
originally expected her to spend in the
hospital, Caitlin spent only ten days
there. She was medicated for infection
by IV, a procedure expected to last at
least a week. This treatment was
discontinued at day 4. She never
required the use of a lung machine. We
were advised her incubation would last
at least a week, allowing her lungs to
progressively get used to the oxygen-
content in her air. She responded so
well, she was removed from the
incubator within 3 days. My wife feared
being unable to breastfeed Caitlin,
something very important to both of us,
for a couple weeks. Instead, Caitlin
was successfully breastfeeding by 3
days old. She was freed for release
from the hospital on day seven, except
that her bilirubin levels suddenly
peaked, and she was returned to her
incubator for three days of ultraviolet
treatment.
We made constant trips to the hospital,
my wife to continue with breastfeeding,
but otherwise to visit with her, and to
introduce family and friends to her, as
she slept with her little blindfolds
on.
Now, at nearly eight months, Caitlin is
a very healthy and very smiley baby.
She has had no health issues related to
her time in the womb.
(More details -- including pictures --
can be found at http://members.home.net/
kirbythomps
on)
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